FICO® Scores consider a wide range of information on your credit report. However, they do not consider:
One of the most important things lenders look at when deciding whether to give you a loan or credit card is your credit score. It tells them how reliably you have paid back debts in the past and how likely you are to pay back new debts.
Many people worry that certain actions may hurt their credit scores. However, there are quite a few factors that actually have no direct impact on your score Knowing what does NOT affect your credit can help relieve anxiety about harmless behaviors
Here are 10 things that do not affect your credit score
1. Checking Your Own Credit Report
Soft inquiries that you initiate to check your own credit report do not impact your score at all. You can check your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion as often as you want without hurting your credit.
You can catch identity theft or mistakes early if you check your credit report often. Monitoring your credit is smart financial practice.
2. Changes in Income
Your credit score doesn’t take into account how much money you make or where it comes from. It doesn’t matter if you get a raise or a pay cut, lose your job, or go on unemployment. Nothing changes your credit score.
Of course, a significant loss of income could affect your ability to pay bills on time. Late payments will damage your credit score. But the income change itself does not.
3. Personal Details Like Marital Status
Details like your race, marital status, age, and education are not included in your credit reports. Therefore, changes to these personal factors cannot influence your credit score.
For example, getting married, divorced, or having a birthday does not help or hurt your credit.
4. Being Denied for Credit
Simply being denied when you apply for a new credit card or loan does not directly hurt your credit score beyond the hard inquiry. Credit reports do not show whether an application was approved or denied.
5. Paying With Debit Instead of Credit
You won’t build your credit history if you pay for things with cash, a debit card, or a prepaid card. It does not hurt your credit, though, like not paying your credit card bill on time could.
6. Shopping Around for the Best Rates
When you rate shop for a mortgage, auto loan, or other major financing within a short window of time, credit scoring models generally treat these inquiries as a single hard inquiry.
Shopping around for the best rates will barely impact your score, if at all. It’s absolutely worth doing.
7. Paying Bills That Don’t Report to Credit Bureaus
If a company does not report your payment history to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, then your history with them cannot influence your credit score.
For example, paying your landlord, a local daycare, or a babysitter on time cannot boost your credit if they don’t report your payments.
8. Authorized User Accounts
Being added as an authorized user on someone else’s credit card does not hurt your credit. You are not responsible for the primary cardholder’s payment history.
However, if the primary user is delinquent on payments, it could damage your score. Only make someone an authorized user if you completely trust them.
9. Getting Married
Spouses may open joint accounts after marriage, but their credit reports remain separate. Your spouse’s credit cannot directly help or hurt your credit score. You both maintain individual credit histories.
10. Paying Someone Else’s Bills
If you kindly pay off a friend or family member’s credit card bill, it will not boost your credit score. Account payment history only impacts the primary account holder’s credit report.
While these 10 factors have no direct impact on your credit score, there are plenty of behaviors that can drastically help or harm your credit. The most important things you can do to maintain excellent credit are:
- Pay all bills on time with no late payments
- Keep credit card balances low
- Limit hard inquiries from new credit applications
- Maintain a mix of credit types like revolving and installment loans
- Avoid collections accounts and bankruptcies
By monitoring your credit report frequently, you can catch any negative items or errors and address them promptly. Keeping tabs on your credit will also give you peace of mind that no identity thieves are damaging your reputation.
Focus on maintaining good financial habits, and you will see your credit score rise steadily over time. Pay no mind to the myths about actions that supposedly hurt your credit but really have no impact at all.
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FICO® Scores consider a wide range of information on your credit report. However, they do not consider:
- Your race, color, religion, national origin, sex and marital status. It is against the law in the US for credit scores to take these things into account, along with getting public assistance or using any consumer rights under the Consumer Credit Protection Act.
- Your age. FICO Scores don’t look at your age like some other types of scores do.
- Your salary, occupation, title, employer, date employed or employment history. But lenders may look at this information as well as other types of scores.
- Where you live.
- Any interest rate that is being charged on a certain account or credit card
- Any items reported as child/family support obligations. Child support and family support accounts don’t affect your FICO Score because they aren’t used to figure out the score.
- Certain types of inquiries (requests for your credit report). Requests you make to your credit report to look it over do not count toward your scores. These are called “consumer-initiated inquiries.” They also don’t count “administrative inquiries” or “promotional inquiries,” which are requests made by lenders to look over your account with them or make you a “pre-approved” credit offer. Requests marked as coming from employers are also not taken into account.
- Any information not found in your credit report.
- Non-bankruptcy public records. The only public records that show up on credit reports are bankruptcy records. This means that they are the only public records that have an effect on FICO scores. Tax liens, civil judgments, and other public records that aren’t bankruptcy cases will no longer show up on your credit report, so they won’t affect your FICO Score.
- Anything that can’t be shown to be a good indicator of future credit behavior
- Whether or not you are going to any kind of credit counseling
How To Fix A BAD Credit Score ASAP
FAQ
Which of the following does not affect your credit score?
Therefore, the correct answer is B. Income level, as it does not directly influence your credit score. Oct 21, 2024.
What will not affect your credit score?
Paying with a debit card Using a debit card, rather than a credit card, to pay for items typically won’t impact your credit history or credit scores. When you pay with a credit card, you’re essentially borrowing the funds to pay back later. With a debit card, you’re using money you already have in an account.
What doesn’t affect credit score?
Information related to accounts, like your payment history and balances, can impact your credit score, along with recent credit applications or negative items like collections or bankruptcies. It’s important to know that your personal information does not affect your credit score.
Which factor will not affect your credit score?
… The following factors also do not impact your credit score: age, child support/alimony payments, utility/rent/cell phone payments, and bank overdrafts.